China to Allocate Additional Spectrum to 3G Networks

Published on: 9th Oct 2008

Note -- this news article is more than a year old.

It has been reported that China is planning to allocate additional radio spectrum to the homegrown 3G service, by taking it from the low cost XiaoLingTong local area wireless service. Xie Feipo, from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that the ministry had asked fixed line operators to return the PHS radio spectrum so it could be reassigned to the TD SCDMA network.

China Telecom operates a XiaoLingTong system in China, even though
technically it was not regarded as allowed to provide mobile services, because
of some particularities of the Chinese governance. China Netcom, the other
fixed-line operator in China, also provides XiaoLingTong service. The system has
been a runaway hit, with over 90 million subscribers signed up as of 2007. The
largest vendors of the system are UTStarcom and ZTE.

Its low price has made it appealing to customers who cannot afford a
conventional GSM or CDMA mobile phone. It also enabled the landline operators to
provide a basic wireless service in competition with China Mobile and China
Unicom.

Following the reshuffling of the industry, all the telecoms operators now
have both a fixed and mobile license.

"We will reassign the spectrum as soon as possible," Xie Feipo told
the South China Morning Post newspaper. Mr Xie said China Telecom and
China Unicom, which have acquired fixed-line operator China Netcom Group, had
responded positively to the idea.

In 2005, the MIIT tried to clamp down on the growth of the XiaoLingTong
networks by forbidding customers from roaming between cities, and restricting
access to the city area where the customer was registered.